“It’s time for Apple to get serious about Apple TV,” Dan Frommer writes for Silicon Alley Insider.
“If Steve Jobs wants to make a serious run at owning our living room’s ‘digital hub,’ then Apple TV needs a serious overhaul, ASAP,” Frommer writes.
“Apple TV is too confined,” Frommer writes. Apple should “add a Safari browser with all the plugins you’d need to watch videos from Hulu, MLBTV, NBC, ABC, Fox, etc., listen to audio from Muxtape, Last.fm, Pandora, and other sites that aren’t too directly competing.”
“In theory, this also means that Apple is eventually inviting iTunes competitors like Netflix or Amazon onto its box, since they offer browser-based video services of their own. But better to have to compete for space on your own platform than have a platform no one uses,” Frommer writes.
Apple should add a Blu-ray player to Apple TV. “An Apple TV with an optional Blu-ray drive could replace the DVD player in every living room. An Apple TV without one is a compromise — there just aren’t enough movies on iTunes to make digital delivery a feasible, primary option today,” Frommer writes.
“That’s it. For now at least — let’s not get ahead of ourselves. AppleTV doesn’t need too many features… It just needs to make our TV-watching experience better, by adding as many video sources as possible, in one nicely designed package,” Frommer writes. “What do you say, Steve?”
Full article here.
Maybe one of those “product transitions” that will “reduce margins” that Apple CFO Oppenheimer talked about during last quarter’s financial earning call is Apple TV? In order to keep Apple TV’s price reasonable and also include a Blu-ray player, margins would have to be cut close.
